


Graveyard Shift

by SvengoolieCat



Series: The Seer Chronicles [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Creepy, Halloween, M/M, Occult October Challenge, One Shot, Spooky, ghost story, sp00qy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-11 01:23:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16466021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SvengoolieCat/pseuds/SvengoolieCat
Summary: Prompt: Mallory is haunted by the ghost of a past M.Mallory wants to know who's vandalizing his office and gets more than he bargained for.





	Graveyard Shift

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot in the 00Poltergeist 'verse. It might make more sense if you read 00Poltergeist first, but it's probably not totally necessary. I'm quite fond of this 'verse, and have been itching to write more for it. Occult October was the perfect excuse, ha. 
> 
> Not beta'ed. As always, any mistakes are part of my natural charm.
> 
> Happy Halloween!

 

 

 

Gareth Mallory was a thoughtful man, but not usually a fanciful one. When weird things started happening, he didn’t pay much attention. If it was cold in the office, well, it was late October. If his tea took five minutes to change from piping hot to a cold brownish sludge that suggested constant budget cuts and despair, well, he worked for the Secret Service.

Things moved on his desk. (He might have just put them down in different places.) Paintings and framed certificates fell off his walls. (Maybe the picture hanging nails weren’t tapped in far enough, or perhaps they weren’t anchored right.) The peace lily he’d gotten at Easter to spruce up the place was a shriveled collection of miserable sticks no matter how he turned it to the light and monitored the watering schedule. (His wife had the green thumb, anyway.)

The sounds of muffled talking and whispering when he was working late at night were probably just the cleaning staff and the graveyard shift. (His office was soundproofed, but nothing was perfect. Maybe he needed a white noise machine? He’d talk to Q about it.)

Mallory was a rational man, and everything could be neatly explained away. Usually.

The disruptions got worse as Halloween approached. He came in Monday morning to his desk looking like someone had shoved most of his things off, his paperclips and other office supplies were scattered into every crevice in his office like confetti. An entire ream of printer paper looked like it had been thrown in the air by a frustrated writer. The books on the bookcases were either turned around so you saw pages instead of the spine, or they were stacked haphazardly on the desk. It was the books that set him off. He had carefully alphabetized his entire library because it made his OCD happy, and this disruption did not please him.

“Moneypenny!”

“Sir?”

“Has anyone been in my office?”

“No sir,” she said. Her dark eyes scanned the chaos and she prowled the perimeter, a tiger in high-heeled shoes. “It’s been locked. I can check the footage outside the office to see if anyone has been by, if you like. It might be one of the double-ohs looking to make trouble.”

Mallory rubbed his fingers agitatedly across his cheekbone. “That’s the last thing anyone needs right now, with the talks of mergers and phasing out the double-ohs entirely.”

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” Moneypenny said. She picked up the books and looked at them. “You have quite a collection of ghost story classics.”

She picked up Shirley Jackson’s _The Haunting of Hill House_ and looked at the dust jacket. “My dad was an old film buff. He showed me the original movie of this book when I was a kid. The black and white one with shadows and terrifying music, where your imagination makes up worse monsters and scenarios than anything they could have shown on-screen. Scared the shit out of me. I slept with the lights on for a week. Can’t pay me to watch the new one on Netflix.”

Mallory frowned at the stack of books. His copies of _The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe_ , Wilde’s novella _The Canterville Ghost_ , _The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton_ , and a miscellaneous collection of penny dreadful short stories were all teetering on the edge of his desk, demanding instant attention.

“Sir,” Moneypenny said. She moved around to his desk chair.

Everything in the middle of his desk had been shoved to the sides until there was a clear space occupied by only two books: Susan Hill’s _The Woman in Black_ , and the one non-ghost story on the entire desk, _Dial M for Murder_.

“Someone’s trying to make me feel haunted,” Mallory said, crossly. “Please ask Q to send one of his minions to scan for bugs.” He started putting his office to rights.

“Should I cancel the 10am with the Minister of Defense?”

“No,” Mallory said. “I’ll sort this out in plenty of time.” And if delaying the meeting was the goal of this chaos, he was damned if he’d give the perpetrator the satisfaction.

“I’ll call Q Branch.”

Between Mallory, Moneypenny, and the hapless minion who showed up with a bug sweeper and got shanghaied into helping, the office was set to its original neatness by 9:55 am.

 

~M~

Tuesday came.

Mallory’s office was the exact picture of the day before, down to the exact position of the same books on his desk. For a moment, he wondered if he was trapped in a Groundhog Day time loop, and then he dismissed the idea entirely as ridiculous.

“Moneypenny!”

 

~M~

Wednesday.

The desk was a disaster, and the office had the feeling of real frustration permeating the air. Or, perhaps, that was just the knife planted dead center in the middle of his desk.

“Ah,” said Moneypenny. She smiled with the same attitude of many field agents, but he saw the concern and unease under the bravado. “That’s where my letter opener went to. Got it from Q one year in a Secret Santa.”

 _You should go see Q_.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Mallory asked. “I should see Q about what?”

Moneypenny frowned. “I didn’t say anything about seeing him,” she said. “Although, that’s not a bad idea. He’s a sneaky bastard who hoards secrets in his hair and likes a mystery.”

“Is he in today?”

Moneypenny consulted her computer. “He’s graveyard shift this week. Probably will come in when you’re on your way out. Do you need him earlier?”

“No, no,” Mallory said. The boffin seemed to be an indefatigable mad scientist. He was less of a workaholic these days than he used to be, he seemed to be trying at moderation, but Q still logged his hours and then some. “I’ll see him when he gets here.”

 

~M~

There was something eerie about Q Branch late at night. MI6 was never closed for business, but there was a marked difference between night and day. The night crew minions were armed with their caffeine and their headphones and went about their lives, hacking things and chattering at agents and doing whatever it was that the pasty computer vampires did when the sun went down.

Mallory wasn’t entirely sure that some of them weren’t vampires. He allowed himself a moment of concern over the clear Vitamin D deficiency of the minions, and then dismissed it as Not His Problem.

A couple of the more helpful minions pointed him wordlessly towards one of deserted gun ranges, presuming correctly that he was looking for their mostly benevolent Overlord.

Mallory went in the observation gallery first. He never liked wandering into a live range without announcing himself in general, but in Q Branch it was vital to get the lay of the land first. They were a bunch of trigger-happy cowboys, and few more so than the soft-spoken Quartermaster.

Q was alone, as far as Mallory could tell. He occupied the middle booth. He handled the Walther PPK with practiced competence, barely looking at the weapon as he stripped it down to its individual parts and rebuilt it, inserting a new ammo clip last. He made some minute adjustments, sighted down the barrel, paused to scratch some notes on the clipboard next to him, and fired the entire clip at the target at the end of the range.

Q set the gun down and hit the switch that brought the target forward for examination. Counted the holes with his fingers, all of them clustered in a small circle. A smiley face? Mallory was a little impressed and reminded himself to check the range scores.

Q made some notes, or he tried to. He shook the pen to get the ink to flow, to no avail. He tossed it in the garbage can at his feet and patted down the pockets of his lab coat for another. No luck.

Mallory deemed it safe to go down, but before he could move from the observation window he saw Q’s messenger bag flipped open. No one was anywhere near it. A pen sailed from the bag, thrown by an invisible hand, and Q neatly snatched it out of the air with an absent nod and word of thanks.

The ground dropped out from under Mallory’s feet.

He turned to leave the gallery and immediately found James Bond lounging in the doorway, hands in his pockets. Mallory’s lizard brain noted that there was only one way out of this room, and his deadliest agent was blocking it with unclear intention.

Bond’s smile was a cold, bladed thing that only made his blue eyes icier. Since it was after hours, he’d stripped off the ever-present suit coat. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing corded muscle under tanned skin. The shoulder holster was empty. No doubt it was his Walther that Q was fine-tuning. Mallory was taller than Bond, not nearly as soft as his desk-jockey position suggested, but Bond killed men like Mallory as a matter of course. The overhead light—dim and lending the tableau a gritty, noir aesthetic—flickered.

Mallory glanced down at the range. Q had removed his ear protection and was leaning against the partition of his chosen booth in a nonchalant echo of Bond. He looked up through his dark eyelashes, the stark light of the range highlighting the sharp lines of his face. One corner of his mouth lifted. He gave a tiny finger-wave of greeting, but Mallory was not comforted by it.

Q said something but was too far away for Mallory to hear.

“You should come down,” Bond said. The tone of voice was deceptively light, and from anyone else would have been an invitation instead of a vague order and threat wrapped in silk.

Mallory went.

Bond and Q always seemed to move in a dance where only they knew the steps or heard the music. It had puzzled Mallory from the first, this curious relationship between the slender, brilliant Quartermaster and the jaded, dangerous agent. For two people who’d supposedly only known each other in the short time since Q’s miraculous retrieval of Bond from a foreign hospital after the Skyfall Incident, they looked at each other with the weight of shared and intimate history. He wasn’t sure if they were friends, lovers, enemies, or any combination of the three, but they were something.

Q met Bond’s eyes and quirked an eyebrow. Mallory had the uncomfortable feeling that they were having an entire conversation about him without saying a word out loud.

“I hear you’ve been having some difficulties with someone in your office, M,” Q said. Bond reclaimed his Walther from Q (Mallory had been correct, it was his that Q had been adjusting) and set it back in his holster.

“I have been, yes.” Mallory said, warily.

There was another look between Bond and Q.

“She’s always been a bit of a bitch,” Bond said. He said it without heat, and with a curious note of fondness. "The vandalism is new, though."

Q swayed gently to shoulder-check the agent. “Don’t be rude, 007.”

Mallory eyed them both. Bond accepted the shoulder bump without moving away. The two of them were confusing. Who the hell knew for sure about Q’s preferences, but Bond had always struck him as the epitome of straight alpha-maleness who chased any pretty woman who crossed his path, and who had made half the Service swoon after him at one time or another. According to Moneypenny, falling madly in love with 007 was practically a rite of passage.

Mallory had the sneaking suspicion that whatever was happening in front of his eyes should probably involve relationship disclosure paperwork. Then he thought that if they decided to take over the world, they’d probably manage it with flair and look good doing it.

“I was trying to make this conversation less awkward and give you an in,” Bond said. “But carry on, Q.”

“What conversation?” Mallory asked.

“The one you’re about to have,” Q said. “Not with me, though. I am not a medium. I do not want to be a medium. It is not in my job description.”

It sounded like he was complaining to someone other than Mallory.

A chill raced up his spine.

“Job descriptions are for the lazy and unimaginative, Q,” growled a voice from beside Mallory. It was voice that he recognized and didn’t. He turned his head to see the flickering image of—

Olivia Mansfield.

In the next blink of an eye, she was standing next to Q instead, arms crossed and looking irritated. The closer she stood to Q, the more solid she appeared, but Mallory still had the curious sensation that he was looking at two people at once: the older, bitchier version of the battle ax he’d come to know overlaying a younger woman with the devil in her eye.

Mallory gaped. He’d seen a lot in his time in the Service, but this was a new one.

“I’ve been trying to get your attention for the better part of a week,” M groused. “You did not get good marks for listening skills in school, did you?” She had the same mulish, defiant look that he saw on James Bond at least once a week.

“You’ve been destroying my office every night?” Mallory said.

“Being dead is extraordinarily trying on the nerves. Especially when the only living people who can see and hear you clearly are these two idiots.” She gestured at Q and Bond with a transparent hand. “I did try to leave clues.”

“The books,” Mallory realized. “The ghost stories. _The Woman in Black_ and _Dial M for Murder_.”

“Just so,” she said. “Now, listen. I shouldn’t linger long on All Hallows Eve.”

She flickered, then solidified. The ambient air temperature plummeted, and the lights dimmed like there was a power surge.

“Bloody hell,” Mallory said, seeing his breath misting.

“At least she’s not cuddled against your back, blowing icy air in your ear,” Q said, archly. “Be grateful.”

Bond shrugged. “Got your attention, didn’t it?”

M snarled, dismissing the two of them with a shooing gesture before turning back to Mallory. “Look. They want to disband the double-ohs and merge MI5 and MI6. Don’t let them.”

Mallory found himself nodding at the authoritative tone. He waited for more, but M shut up and looked expectantly at him.

“That’s it?” he said.

“That’s it,” she confirmed. “There’s a lot of shadows moving, and you _cannot_ relinquish control. You cannot allow them to succeed with their plans because it will be the end of the Secret Service and the start of something far worse. Do you understand?”

“No,” Mallory said. He thought of the meetings down at Whitehall, the whispers of something called Nine Eyes and the way it will revolutionize espionage. He always left those meetings feeling vaguely queasy. “But I expect I will soon enough.”

M looked solemn. In life, she’d been quietly referred to as the Evil Queen of Numbers by some, and the Dragon of MI6 by others. Stubborn, pragmatic, and defiant to the last, Olivia Mansfield had possessed a spine of steel and a propensity for beating people over the head with it. Mallory had admired her, and the loyalty she seemed to inspire, in part because she guarded her agency with vigilance and dedication.

[ _“I know I can’t have this job forever, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave the department in worse shape than I found it,” she’d said. Standing in the middle of his old office downtown, she’d taken his suggestion that she retire with grace and tossed it in the bin._

_“M, you’ve had a great run,” he’d said. He meant it, too. He didn’t want to see her get raked over the coals, this woman who had given her life over to the service of Queen and country. “You should leave with dignity.”_

_“To hell with dignity.” Her blue eyes sparked. “I’ll leave when the job’s done.”_ ]

“Is this what you need?” Mallory asked, cautiously. “To move on?”

M snorted. Looked over at Q and Bond who had withdrawn a short distance to give some semblance of privacy. Their heads were bent over a new prototype weapon. They made a striking pair: the willowy one with his mop of unruly dark hair full of secrets personal and state, and the other one muscular and fair, with hands responsible for a graveyard full of enemies and friends alike. Both dangerous to their enemies and probably to the world, but not dangerous to each other because in the end they were made of the same impossible stuff.

“It is something that’s been bothering me,” she admitted. “But I’ve said my bit, and you’ll handle it from here.” She flickered like a wavy image on an ancient television screen, old then young and back again. “Something they don’t tell you is that death comes hand in hand with obsession. We’re like moths, fixated on the flame that draws us closer and closer. Places, people, things that you take for granted when you’re alive become all-consuming when you’re dead. Take those two, for example. Bond was living a half-life until Q dragged him back, and now he sticks so close they share a shadow.”  

“I think she’s talking shit about me, Q,” Bond said pleasantly.

Q patted his arm absently. “She talks shit about you all the time, Mothman.”

“Romance is dead,” M intoned.

“Romance needs disclosure paperwork,” Mallory said, proving M’s point. “Also, I would like reassurance that Bond isn’t a zombie.”

“No, he’s not a zombie. Or a ghoul for that matter. I checked.”

“Thoroughly.” Bond’s grin was lascivious, and Mallory held up his hand in the universal gesture of _please don’t tell me any details, I beg you_.

“Silva was a ghoul,” Q said, ignoring Bond. A delicate frown line appeared between his eyes. “I am a Seer. Bond is…I’m not actually sure what he is now. He sees ghosts, certainly. _He_ might be a medium.”

Bond’s nose crinkled.

“There are more things in heaven and earth than I dreamt of in my philosophy,” Mallory murmured. “I’ll just take your word for it that he’s not eating interns.”

M’s customary irritated expression went blank, and she tilted her head as if listening to something only she could hear. It was the first time she looked otherworldly, like something dead and moldering in a grave. Her eyes were pits of black and when she turned her head to look at Q there was something disturbing, something predatory in the slow regard.

Bond straightened, all good humor gone. He edged in between M and Q.

Not that it mattered. Between one heartbeat and the next, M was in Q’s face. “Something’s looking for you, little Seer. Something moves in the dark and it knows your name.” Then she smiled, this dead thing. Translucent, papery skin stretched over a death’s head and teeth that might have been fangs.

She disappeared.

The lights came back on full brightness and the air immediately warmed.

Mallory let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Q looked at him, green eyes wonderfully alive and reassuring. Moneypenny often said that Q hid secrets in his hair, and now Mallory thought he agreed.

“And that’s that.” Q sounded like he was commenting on the outcome of a football match. “Your office should be left alone now that she’s delivered her message. She can get intense.”

M needed a drink. Scratch that, he needed an entire bottle. And maybe to go drink it in a church.

“Goodnight, M,” Q said.

It took Mallory a staggering moment to realize that Q meant him and not Olivia Mansfield. A moment to control his heartbeat that leapt when he thought the ghost was back with her empty stare and cryptic warnings. To let go of the sudden mental image of Moneypenny’s letter opener driven a half inch into the wood of his desk.

Q’s eyes and mouth abruptly became kind, and Mallory was grateful for it.

“Goodnight Q. Bond.”


End file.
